Happy New Year — yes it is that time of year again — Advent. Today is the first day of the new year according to the Christian calendar. The Christ-ian Calendar is centered around Christ — his birth, life, teaching, death, resurrection, ascension and reign — that invites us to “do time differently”. To live according to a different time — God’s time revealed in Jesus. Having just returned from a short trip overseas I know what is it like to live according to a different “time zone”. When everyone is asleep I am wide awake and vice versa! It is not easy to be “at odds” with local time — and yet that is the consequence of following Jesus — or as he said: “be in the world but not of the world”.
Instead of speaking about New Year Resolutions we speak of Advent Repentances. Repentance means to turn around to face God again. The purpose is to ready ourselves to receive the coming of Jesus into the world. To be alert and watchful for his coming because we know that Jesus comes in the most unlikely ways and to the most unlikely places — a stable instead of a palace. During Advent we repent — we change. We look inside ourselves and ask what of us Jesus longs to touch and heal and cut out or add in. We look at our families and ask which relationships Jesus longs to transform. We look at our communities and ask where there is a hunger for justice and a thirst for fairness. And in these four weeks of Advent we make the commitment to fast and pray — to reflect and act on these areas of our living — so that when Christmas is celebrated the Christ child finds room in our lives and world.
If we knew that Royalty was coming for a visit on 25 December to our home, business, church, city, etc., surely we would not be sitting around idly? We would have a sense of urgency and excitement about us. We would make preparations. We would change. We would repent.
Strength for your Advent preparations, Alan
